From The Nevada Independent:
The first two artists Gov. Brian Sandoval met with in his quest for an official portraitist said they would take hundreds of photos of him, go back to their studios and send him the final product later.
But he knew he had found the painter he wanted to capture his legacy when he talked with Adrian Gottlieb, who insisted the outgoing governor sit for him in person for 60 hours, or he wouldn’t take the job. Gottlieb wanted the painting to capture a breadth of experience that transcended a single snapshot, and he knew that painting the Governor from life was how achieving that result would be possible.
“I recall sitting there, and it was my only moment to sit, and I literally fell asleep in the chair,” Sandoval recounted at a portrait unveiling ceremony in the Capitol in Carson City. “And he has a brush, and said ‘Hey, governor, you have to look up.’ I think he was too embarrassed to tell me to wake up. He was very patient with me.”
The artist and his subject listened to books and classical music during their time together. At one point, Sandoval had to get up and give orders for the Nevada National Guard to respond to a wildfire.
“It was just an experience that I will treasure. And what you’ve produced here today is just that,” Sandoval said. “This is going to be a Nevada treasure.”
As Sandoval’s term winds down, the oil painting will take its place among those of other governors gone before him. The ceremony, held Thursday afternoon, was also a chance to reminisce about his eight years at the helm of a state that suffered worse than most through the depth of the 2008 economic recession.
“Public service is a gift. It is an absolute gift. And sometimes it becomes routine for people, and you come into your office and you forget that we are public servants,” Sandoval said. “Someday we’re not going to get to do this anymore, and someday we’re going to have that quiet moment when we’re sitting outside and we reflect, and we really stop and we think about first of all how grateful we were to have a position where we could affect people’s lives, and then that moment of satisfaction where you did everything you could to make this state the best possible place that it could be.”
The master of ceremonies was Dale Erquiaga, Sandoval’s chief adviser when he came into office, later the state superintendent and also his “first friend.” The two met shortly after Sandoval moved from California to Fallon as a child and was out of place wearing his “California clothes” among the cowboy types of rural Nevada.
Erquiaga regaled the audience with tales somber and silly. He recalled serious moments when Sandoval laid a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier, met with Chinese leaders during trade missions and closed legislative deals. And he recalled when Sandoval received a gift of two Harry Potter wands and was “running around the office.”
“His very humanness — his ability to embrace a troubled state the way that a parent embraces a sick child is what made him the man that became the governor all the time,” he said. “Those of us who loved him and served in his administration wanted to find an artist to capture that spirit.”
The process for finding an artist began last summer with a call for proposals and a budget of $23,000. Thirty-one artists responded, and a panel that included Erquiaga helped narrow the list to a handful of finalists and, ultimately, Gottlieb.
“I was struck by his ability to simultaneously put me at ease, and his excitement about the project was contagious,” the artist said about his first meeting with Sandoval last fall.
Gottlieb, who had trained in Italy, had never painted a governor. But he reviewed the other gubernatorial portraits and his favorite was that of Gov. John Sparks, who served from 1903 to 1908.
“There was a kind of curious sense of detachment and amusement in his face but he was absolutely connected with the viewer,” Gottlieb said.
He had learned that one of Sandoval’s greatest heroes was President Abraham Lincoln. So he brought a photograph of Lincoln that he said he had always found compelling.
“It was an older and scarred Lincoln, caught in a moment of deep reflection,” Gottlieb said. “I was able to find in that source that same sense of genuineness combined with a charisma that also very much appealed to the governor. We decided to make that the touchstone of the project.”
Together, they decided to include a few key objects in the painting — including a Nevada state flag and a flag lapel pin.
Gottlieb said the 60 hours together and observing Sandoval in different states of mind offered time to change the poses and settle on the final setting, with the governor in the chair, “the concentration in his eyes and expressive movements of his hands.” What he seeks most in portraiture is capturing a subject who is unguarded and “allowing themselves to settle into their chairs literally and metaphorically.”
The two also discussed how Sandoval’s time as a federal judge shaped his perspective on justice and the complex issues he faced that are unique to Nevada. Gottlieb’s observations were that Sandoval was exactly the kind of person he thought he would be and that being around the governor “brought out the best in me.”
“I couldn’t put all of these impressions into the painting directly,” Gottlieb said. “But I hope they are expressed in the gravity of character I hope to convey.”
Erquiaga said Sandoval is a student of history who spent many days and nights walking the halls of the Capitol and looking at the portraits of governors gone before, thinking about their decisions as he made hard choices of his own. He turned wistful when talking about his hopes for the painting.
“Someday I hope to have grandchildren to bring to this building. And I hope that they and the generations of Nevadans yet to come see in this portrait what those of us who served in your office and your cabinet saw for the last eight years,” Erquiaga said. “The soul of a leader whose grit and gravitas and compassion inspired countless others to be even just a little bit better than we believed we could be.”
Riley Snyder contributed to this report.
